'I'm pregnant!': Natalie Cassidy expecting her first child with boyfriend of nine months

Sharing the good news: Natalie Cassidy, pictured in London on Monday, is pregnant

Former EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy is 12 weeks pregnant, she announced today.

The actress, 26, and her new boyfriend, transport manager Adam Cottrell, 30, are thrilled by the news.

The couple met in June last year at the Isle of Wight festival and moved in together a month later.

'We haven't really gone public with our relationship, so I guess this will seem a bit sudden to some people,' she told OK magazine. 'But it was a whirlwind romance for us too, I guess.

'We feel like we've known each other for ever.'

Natalie, who has battled her weight for years, has been balancing her cravings with sensible eating.

'I can't get enough of chicken, mayonnaise and sweetcorn sandwiches!' she admits. 'But I've been eating healthily - I've not been noshing down four cream cakes in one sitting and claiming I'm eating for two.

'My midwife says if you eat for six people you'll end up looking like six people.

'You really don't need to eat that much more when you're pregnant - even at eight months you only need an extra 300 calories a day.'

But Natalie, who recently said she regretted doing her fitness DVD because of the attention it brought to her weight, now looks forward to focusing on more important matters.

'I hope people realise that I really do have better priorities than caring what they say about what I'm eating or wearing - I just want to concentrate on being a brilliant mum.'

Natalie, who has polycystic ovaries, was concerned she would struggled to conceive.

Whirlwind: Natalie and Adam, pictured here last week, only began dating in June

'I wanted children so much, it was a worry. I came off my contraception in November but I never thought I'd get pregnant that quickly!'

The pregnancy comes as welcome good news for Natalie, whose 'surrogate' mother and former EastEnders co-star Wendy Richards died last year.